Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume IX Part 2

Her soft musical voice fell on the ear of the youth; but his keen, dark eye was busy with the examination of charms with which his ear had been long familiar. The blush of a woman is a man's triumph; whatever may be its secret cause, the man will construe it favourably to himself, in the face of a denial of his power; and so far at least he has the right, that nature herself evidences in his favour, by an acknowledgment that he has touched the fountains of the heart. Fleming was not different from other men; and, though he might have been wrong in his construction of the secret moving impulse which called up the mantling adornment of beauty that was almost beyond the power of increase, he felt the full influence of the effect he thought he had produced, and, conceiving himself favourably received, laid in his heart the germs of an affection that was to govern his destiny. The forms of breeding, more punctilious in those days of chivalry than even now, forbade farther communication at that time, and, bowing gracefully as he drank up the rays of her blus.h.i.+ng beauty, he bounded away after his dogs, that had kept their course in pursuit of the flying doe.

This was the first time that ever Helen had seen a stranger huntsman cross Kirconnel Lee in pursuit of his game; but it was soon to appear that roes and does, when pursued by the gallant Fleming, seemed to think that in the recesses of Kirconnel they might find that safety which was denied them in other coverts; at least it became certain that more of that kind of game fled before the hunter over Kirconnel Lee, after the meeting we have described, than ever were seen before by man or maiden.

Meanwhile the image of the n.o.ble youth, with his clear, intelligent eye, his rising and expanded forehead, from which his black hair was shaded to a side, and mixed with the long flowing locks that reached down to his shoulders; his intellectual expression of countenance, where beauty sat enshrined among the virtues, his breeding, his modesty, his voice and general bearing--were all busy with the fancy of the Maid of Kirconnel. Nature's talisman had been applied, and the charm had wrought in its highest and most mysterious power. Nor less had been the effect of that first meeting on the mind of the youthful heir of Kirkpatrick.

They loved; and the does which afterwards brushed over Kirconnel Lee were only the scouts of the hunting lover, who, while he could not help the choice of the flying wilding in taking that direction, could not, of a consequence, avoid a repeated _intrusion_ on the wood-bower privacy of her who longed to see him with a heart that palpitated at his coming as strongly as did that of the flying deer. The rules of breeding direct all their force against a first interview; against a second, though brought about in the same way as the first, they have no efficacy; and love, which defies the whole code, soon reconciled differences which he despised. A few meetings revealed to each other the fact--which, somehow or other, is discovered by n.o.body but lovers--that one person has been intended from the beginning of the world to be formed for another. The heir of Kirkpatrick and the Maid of Kirconnel exhibited to each other such a similarity of thought, feeling, and sentiment, that love seemed to have nothing more to do than to tie those threads which nature had not only spun, but hung forth with a predisposed reciprocity of communication. The discovery that their thoughts had taken the same range, and reached an equal alt.i.tude of elevation, carried with it that pleasant surprise that is always favourable to the progress of the tender pa.s.sion; and the delight of a new-born sympathy in sentiments that had long gratified only the heart in which they were conceived, but which now were seen glowing in the eyes of another, was only another form of that pa.s.sion itself.

Though Helen had seen many indications that might have satisfied her (if her mind had been directed to the subject) that her father and mother were bent upon a match between her cousin of Blacket House and her, she had never, either from a want of courage or steady serious thought on the subject, put it to herself what was her precise predicament or condition, on the supposition of such circ.u.mstance being in itself true and irremediable. She had hitherto had no great need for secresy, because she did not love another; and her father, mother, and lover, having taken it for granted that she was favourable to her cousin's suit, nothing of a definite nature had ever transpired to call for a demonstration on her part, as an alternative of dishonesty and double-dealing. Her situation was now changed. She now loved, and loved ardently, another; and the necessity she felt of meeting the heir of Kirkpatrick in secret, brought out in full relief her inmost sense of what were the views and purposes of her father and mother, and all the responsibility of her negative conduct, as regarded the suit of him she could never love. But, strange as it may seem, if she felt a difficulty in correcting her cousin and disobeying her parents before the accession of her love, she felt that difficulty rise to an impossibility after that important event of her life. She trembled at the thought of her love being crossed: one word of her rejection of the suit of her cousin would reach the ears of her parents; dissension would be thrown into the temple of peace; her love would be discovered; her lover, a man famous in arms, and an aider of the Johnstones, the opponents of Blacket House, traced, rejected, and banished: and her heart finally torn and broken by the antagonist powers of love and duty. She felt her own weakness, and trembled at it, without coming to a resolution to make a disclosure; while her overwhelming love carried her, on the moonlight nights, over Kirconnel Lee, to meet her faithful Heir of Kirkpatrick in the romantic burying-ground already described. This extraordinary place was that fixed upon by the lovers for their night meetings; for in any other part of the domains of Kirconnel they could not have escaped the eye of Blacket House; who, though he had no suspicion of a rival, was so often in search of the object of his engrossing pa.s.sion, that she seldom went out without being observed by the ever-waking and vigilant surveillance of love.

Many times already had Helen waited till her unconscious parents retired to the rest of the aged, and the moon threw her sheet of silver over Kirconnel Lee, and, wrapped up in a night-cloak, slipped out at the wicker-gate of the west enclosure, to seek, under the shades of the oaks, Death's Mailing, the appointed trysting-place of the ardent lovers. Again she was to see her beloved Heir of Kirkpatrick, and at last she had resolved to break to him the painful position in which she was placed by the still existing belief of her parents and Blacket House, that she was to be his wedded wife. On this occasion, she sat wistfully looking out at her chamber window. Her father and mother had retired to their couch. Everything was quiet, the wind stilled, and the mighty oaks whispered not the faintest sigh to disturb the sensitive ear of night. The moon was already up, and she was on the eve of wrapping her cloak round her, and creeping forth into the forest shade, when she observed the long shadow of a man extending many yards upon the s.h.i.+ning gra.s.s of the green lee. The figure of the individual she could not see; for a projection of the building, sufficient to conceal him, but not to prevent his shadow from being revealed, interrupted her vision. She hesitated and trembled. If the shadow had moved and disappeared, she could have accounted for it, by supposing that some of the domestics had not yet retired to bed; but why should a man stand alone and stationary at that hour, in that place, in that position? Her fears ran all upon Blacket House, who was never happy but when in her presence or near her person; and who had been, on a former occasion, reported by the servants to have lain and slept under her window for an entire night, and never left his position till the morning sun exposed the doting lover to the wondering eyes of the domestics, who had never yet felt a love that kept them awake for more than a dreamy hour at c.o.c.kcrow. As she gazed and hesitated, her hour was pa.s.sing, and her lover would be among the grave-stones, waiting for her. Her anxiety grew intense; she feared to go, but shook at the thoughts of disappointing _him_; never dreaming (so whispered love) of herself. The figure still stood as stationary as a grave-stone, while her soul was agitated like the restless spirit that hovers over it, sighing for the hour of departure to the regions of ether. She could bear no longer; the projection which concealed him would conceal her; she plied the furtive steps of love; and crossing, like a fairy on the moonlit green knowe, the rising lawn, was forth among the towering oaks in as little time as the shadow of a pa.s.sing cloud would have taken to trail its dingy traces over the s.h.i.+ning lee.

In a short time she arrived at the churchyard, and saw, through the interstices of the surrounding trees, the Heir of Kirkpatrick sitting on a green tumulus, the grave of one who had perhaps loved as they now loved, waiting for her who was beyond the trysting-hour. In a moment longer she was in his arms, and the stillness of the dead was invaded by the stifled sighs, the burning whispers, the rustling pressure of ardent, impatient lovers. The rising graves, and the mossy tomb-stones, and the white scattered bones that had escaped the s.e.xton's eye, and glittered in the moonbeams, were equally neglected and overlooked; and no fear of fairy, ghost, or gnome, or gowl, entered where Love left no room but for his own engrossing sacrifices. The simple monument of love of "Mary of the Le'," that rose by their side, had often brought the tears to Helen's eyes; but Mary of the Lee was now forgotten. "There is a time and a place for all things" but love, whose rule is general over the flowery lee and the green grave, the mid-day hour and the dreary key-stone of night's black arch.

"What kept ye, sweet Helen, love?" whispered Kirkpatrick in her ear, as she lay entranced in love's dream on his bosom.

"By that question, good Adam," answered she, according to the mode of familiar address of her day, "there hangs a secret that oppresses your Helen, and drinks up all the joys of our affection."

"Speak it forth, my gentle Helen," said Fleming. "What is it? The secresy of our meeting? I have been meditating a resolution to address your father, and this will confirm me. He can have no objections to my suit, save that I am a friend of the Johnstones, and an open warrior; while your cousin, whom you rejected before you saw me, is a concealed mosstrooper, and a secret manslayer."

"There, there," muttered Helen, with trembling emotion--"there, Adam, you have hit the bleeding part of my heart. I did not say to you that I had rejected Blacket House before I saw you; but you were ent.i.tled to make that supposition, because I told you that I never received his love; but, alas! Adam, there is a distinction there; and, small as it may seem, its effects may be great upon the fortunes and happiness of your Helen. It is true I have never received his love; but it is equally true that his love, having overgrown the thought of a possibility of rejection, has overlooked my negative indications, and put down my silence for consent. Yes, Adam, yes--even now Blacket House thinks I love him; and, oh! the full responsibility of my apathy rises before me like a threatening giant; my father and my mother have, I fear, taken for granted that I am to become the wedded wife of my cousin."

"Helen, this does indeed surprise me," replied Kirkpatrick, thoughtfully and sorrowfully. "I thought I had a sufficient objection to overcome on the part of your father, when I had to conquer the prejudices of clans.h.i.+p, and soothe his fears of my ardent spirit for the foray. But this changes all, and my difficulties are increased from the height of Kirconnel Lee to the towering Criffel." And he sat silent for a time, and mused thoughtfully. "But why, my love," he continued, "have you allowed this dangerous delusion to rest so long undisturbed, till it has become a conviction that may only be removed with danger to us all?"

"Ask me not, Adam," replied she, with a full heart, "what I cannot explain. While the tongue of Blacket House's friends.h.i.+p was changing to love, I, whose thoughts were otherwise directed, perceived not the change; and when the truth appeared to me, my love for my father and mother, against the placid stream of whose life I have ever trembled to throw the smallest pebble of a daughter's disobedience, prevented me, day by day, from making the avowal that I could not love their choice.

The difficulty increased with the hour; and, ah! my love for you crowned it at last with impossibility."

"That should rather have removed the difficulty," answered he. "Explain, sweet Helen. You are dealing in shadowy parables."

"Think you so, Adam?" said she, sighing. "Ah, then, is man's love different from woman's? The one can look an obstacle in the face; the other turns from it with terror, and flees. See you not that, by telling my parents I could not love my cousin, I would have been conjuring up a bad angel to cross, with his black wing, the secret but sweet path of our affection. The very possibility of being separated from you--too dear, Adam, as you are to this beating heart--made me tremble at the articulation of that charmed word which contains all my happiness on earth. You have stolen my heart from my father and mother, my sweet woods and bowers, my bright moon and Kirtle; and think you what it would be for me to lose him in whom all is centred!"

"Ah! Helen, Helen, this is unlike the majesty of that mind that roved the blue fields of the heavens, and searched the hidden springs of the love that reigns through all created things. That such thoughts should be allied to that weakness which increases inevitable danger by flying from it, I could not have supposed to be exemplified by my Maid of Kirconnel. Yet is that trembling fear not a greater proof of my Helen's love than an outspoken rejection of twenty rival suitors? It is--I feel it is; and who will chide a fault of earth that hangs by a virtue of heaven? Dear, devoted, cherished object of my first pa.s.sion, what has the simple heir of Kirkpatrick to give in exchange for the devotion of such a being?"

And the impa.s.sioned youth pressed her closer and closer to his breast, while he spread over her shoulders the falling cloak, to s.h.i.+eld her from the autumn dews.

They sat for some time silent--the difficulty of their situation being for a brief period forgotten and lost in the tumult of the rising feelings of a strong mutual pa.s.sion.

"But this must not be allowed to continue," again said Kirkpatrick. "It is _necessary_, Helen, that you do this duty to yourself, to your cousin, your parents, and to me. Call up the necessary fort.i.tude, my love. Tell your mother that you cannot love Blacket House. I know the pain it will produce to you and to them; but, alas! there are many positions in this world where we can only get to the object of our desires through painful means. Pain is, indeed, the price of most of our pleasures; and, when we do not pay that price, we become bankrupt in our best feelings, and die wretched. When the path is free, I shall come forward and claim my Helen in the face of the world. Will you, will you, love?"

And he bent his head, and repeated the question in soft tones beneath the cloak that covered her head; while she, in m.u.f.fled accents, replied--

"I will, I will, Adam, though I should die with the last word of the declaration."

A heavy groan at this moment fell upon their ear. Adam started hastily up; and Helen, roused from her love's dream, stood petrified with fear.

They looked around them in every direction; but the proximity of the place where they had been sitting to the edge of the wood, rendered it easy for an intruder to overhear their discourse, and to escape among the trees in an instant. Helen's fears again fell on Blacket House, and she whimpered to Adam what she had observed previous to her leaving the house. He conceived them to be well founded; and, as the thought of the man who could kill his enemies in disguise, and deny the deed, flashed upon his mind, he felt for his sword, and then smiled at the precipitude of his defensive precaution. It was necessary, however, that Helen should now hurry home; and, surmounting the turf-d.y.k.e of the burying-ground, they, with rapid steps, made for Kirconnel House, at a little distance from which they parted, with a close embrace. Helen stood for a moment, and looked after her lover; then, wrapping her cloak about her head, she moved quickly round the edge of the enclosed lawn, and was on the eve of running forward to the wicket, when Blacket House stood before her. He looked for a moment sternly at her, spoke not a word, and then dashed away into the wood. Terrified still more, Helen hurried away, and got into the house and her own chamber before the full extent of her danger opened, with all its probable consequences, upon her mind. Having undressed herself, she retired to her couch, and meditated on the extraordinary position in which she was now placed. She had now been discovered by her cousin, who, no doubt, knew well that she had that night had a secret meeting with Kirkpatrick--a partisan of his antagonists, the Johnstones. The discovery of a rival had come on him with the discovery of a delusion under which he had sighed, and dreamed, and hoped for years. It was probable, nay, certain, then, that the communication she intended to make to her father and mother, that she could not love Blacket House, would be received along with the elucidating commentary, that the lover now despised had discovered her love intercourse with the heir of Kirkpatrick. She would, therefore, get no credit for her statement that she never loved her cousin; but would be set down as a breaker of pledges, and one who traitorously amused herself with the broken hopes of her unfortunate lovers. Whether she made the communication or not, it would be made by Blacket House, whose fear of losing the object of his affections, or his revenge--whichever of the two moved him--would force him to the immediate disclosure. The serenity of the domestic peace and happiness of Kirconnel House would be clouded for the first time, and that by the disobedience of one who had heretofore been held to contribute, in no small degree, to that which she was to be the means of destroying, perhaps for ever. The contrast between the confidence, the hope, and the affection with which she had been, by her parents, contemplated, and fondly cherished, during all the bygone part of her life, and the new-discovered treachery into which her secret love for a stranger would be construed, was a thought she could scarcely bear. These and a thousand other things pa.s.sed through her thoughts with a rapidity which did not lessen the burning pain of their impress upon her mind; and the repet.i.tion of a thousand reflections, fears, and hopes, produced in the end a confusion that terrified sleep from her pillow, and consigned her to the powers of anguish for the remainder of the night and morning.

She rose with a burning cheek and a high-fluttering pulse, produced by the fever of mind under which she still laboured. She opened the cas.e.m.e.nt to let in the cool breeze of morning to brace her nerves, and enable her to stand an interview with her father and mother, who might already (for Blacket House was at Kirconnel at all hours) be in possession of the secret of what they conceived to be their once-loved Helen's disobedience and treachery. Her own communication, which she had pledged herself to Kirkpatrick to make, was now invested with treble terrors; and though she knew that her safety and happiness depended upon an open declaration, she felt herself totally unable to make it.

Trembling and irresolute, she approached the parlour where her father and mother, along with herself, were in the habit of taking their morning meal. They were there; and there was another there--it was her cousin. He looked at her as she entered, with a calm, but mysterious eye, which fluttered her nerves again, and forced her to stand for a moment in the middle of the apartment, irresolute whether to go forward or retreat. She fearfully threw her eye over the faces of her parents.

There was no change there; the ordinary placidity of their wonted manner, and the kindly love-greeting borne in their mellow voices, startled her--so strong had been her conviction that all was disclosed.

Her parents were dest.i.tute of guile; and an instant's thought satisfied her that they were still in their ignorance of the secret. But Blacket House continued his dark gaze in silence; and even this--a decided alteration in his manner--was unnoticed by the unsuspecting couple, who threw their fond eyes on their loving daughter as their only remaining pride and solace. What meant this? The new turn taken by the stream of her difficulty and danger surprised and confused her; but, calming by the influence of her parents' kindness, she sat down and went through the forms of the morning meal, without exhibiting a discomposure that might attract the notice of these loving beings, who searched her face only for the indications of health and the beams of her pleasure. Her comparative composure enabled her to collect her ideas; and she thought she now discovered a reason for this seeming forbearance or discretion of Blacket House--a man little formed for these, or any other virtues: he intended to _sell_ his knowledge at the price of a hand that never could be his, but by this or some other means of compulsion. The moment this thought--and, under all the circ.u.mstances, it was a reasonable one--entered her mind, she trembled at the power of the dark-eyed, silent being who sat there, and gazed upon her in revengeful triumph.

For relief, she turned her eyes to her parents; yet she saw there the smile that approved his suit, and the confidence that would believe his declaration. Her own Kirkpatrick was absent; and she dared not meet him to receive the a.s.sistance of his advice, to enable her to support herself under her trial, or devise a plan suited to the changed circ.u.mstances for her relief. She hurried over her meal, and hastened again to her apartment, to confirm herself in the opinion she had formed of Blacket House's intentions. Every thought tended to add to her conviction that she was correct, and told her that he never would succeed in his scheme. He would now, for certain, endeavour to see her alone, and lay before her the danger into which she had plunged herself, and the bargain by which she would be relieved from it. But she would defeat him; she would renounce her walks in the woods, desert, for a time, her bowers, and bid adieu to her silver Kirtle. She would keep her apartment under a pretence of slight indisposition--far from an untruth--and, in the meantime, try to devise some mode of relief from her painful situation.

But the solicitude of her parents interfered, in some degree, with these plans. They discovered that she was not so ill as to be unable to seek what might do her service--her former walks and amus.e.m.e.nts around Kirconnel Lee; and thus was she obliged to yield to kindness; yet she contrived to have her parents near her, so as to deprive Blacket House of an opportunity of communicating to her his imputed plan of enforcing his suit. As yet, his silence had been continued: her parents were still in ignorance; and it was only (so she argued) because he had not hitherto found her alone, that his dreaded communication had not as yet been made. On the occasion of her first walk, however, she, by some untoward chance, was left in one of the arbours alone, and the opportunity (the first that had occurred) was seized by him--Blacket House was again before her, and all her fears were in a moment roused.

Their eyes met with an intelligence they had never before possessed.

Every pa.s.sing thought seemed to be mutually read, while a few words of ordinary import seemed to be only as a preparation to his expected statement. Helen did not dare to leave him; she feared to rouse his anger, and yet she wanted courage to reply with ordinary pertinence to his remarks. His eye was constantly fixed on her, and the few words he uttered came with difficulty and pain; yet was there not the slightest allusion to the secret he undoubtedly held locked up in his breast. Was he not to bring forward his threat of exposing her, as a wrenching instrument, to force from her a consent that he was satisfied would never be given voluntarily? There was no indication of any such issue.

What could be the true meaning of this dark-minded man's conduct? Again he had disappointed her fearful antic.i.p.ations. He had not told her parents; he was not to tell herself. What then was he to do? She could not answer her self-put question; and her surprise when he parted from her, after a short conversation, conducted with difficulty, with his secret unapproached, and the mysterious stare of his illegible eye, was not less than her terror of the antic.i.p.ated issue when she first encountered him.

This new extraordinary element in the subject of her meditations and fears disarranged all her ideas, and sent her thoughts in new channels for a discovery of what might be the secret plans of her cousin. She sighed for an interview with her lover; but that, she was satisfied, would be attended with great danger; and thus reduced to her own resources, she pa.s.sed the night following her meeting with Blacket House in still increasing pain and difficulty. In the morning she was visited in her own chamber by her mother, who appeared, from the serious aspect of her countenance, to have something of great importance to communicate.

"Helen," began the good matron, "though your father and I have seldom broached the subject of love and marriage in your presence, we have, with heartfelt satisfaction, observed and understood that the man who alone has our consent to win your virgin heart is your own choice. Your wooing has lasted so long, that the very birds in the woods are familiar with your persons and converse; and surely this is not to last always.

You are twenty years old, my dear Helen, at the next Beltane, the first of May; and I know that it is Blacket House's wish that your happiness may be crowned by a union within as short a period as we will agree to fix. I have broken the matter to you, my love; and as I am well acquainted with the fluttering of Love's wings when Hymen enters the bower, I will not urge you to fix a day at present, but leave you to the pleasant meditations my communication cannot but call forth. I shall send your breakfast to your bedroom this morning, my love; but I hope we may walk in the afternoon. Say nothing, Helen. Adieu! adieu!"

And the mother left the room rapidly, as if to avoid noticing the blushes of the supposed happy damsel. Helen heard the words uttered, as one may be supposed to feel the syllables of a condemnation falling upon the heart. It was well that her mother departed so rapidly, for the agitation the kind parent attributed to joy, was but the prelude to a faint, which retained her cold and struggling in its relentless arms for a considerable period. The first indications of consciousness were, if possible, more terrible than the last thoughts that frightened it away.

For a long period she sat upon the couch where she had heard the dreadful intelligence, and, pa.s.sing her hand over her brow, tried to collect her energies, so as to be able to contemplate the full extent of her evil. She thought she could now see some connection between the announcement made by her mother and the extraordinary and mysterious conduct of Blacket House, though she was satisfied that neither of her parents possessed any knowledge of her intercourse with Kirkpatrick. The scheme of the early marriage might originate in the fears of her cousin, while his secresy was only still maintained till he found that she would not yield to her parents' authority; when would be the time for using his threat of disclosure to Helen, to compel her consent. All this reasoning seemed founded in existing circ.u.mstances and appearances; but so confused were her thoughts, and so painful every effort of her mind to acquire clearer views, that she felt inclined to renounce reasoning on a subject that seemed at every turn to defeat all her efforts to come to the real truth. Her misery was at least certain; for now, while the absolute necessity of a disclosure of her secret love became more peremptory and inevitable, the circ.u.mstances under which it would be made were such as would add to the unhappiness of her parents, and to the apparent deceit and treachery of her own nature, which was, notwithstanding, incapable of guile.

Meanwhile, the effects of so much mental anguish, acting upon a tender frame, became soon apparent in her pale countenance and swollen eyes.

She would not leave her apartment; and when her mother again visited her, she saw a change on her daughter very different from that which accompanies the character of a bride in prospective. The circ.u.mstance surprised the old lady; but still so satisfied was she that there could exist no objection to a lover whom she had (as was thought) cherished for years, that it never occurred to her that the change in her daughter was attributable to the announcement she had made to her; while Helen herself, oppressed with the secret which she struggled (as yet in vain) to divulge, shunned a subject which she found herself unable to treat in such a way as would insure to her relief from her sorrow. Every effort was made to get her out into the woods, where her former scenes might enliven her mind, and bring back her wonted spirits, which, chiming the musical bells of youth's happy glee, used to charm the age-stricken hearts of her parents. But these scenes had lost their power over her.

The secrets Blacket House had to divulge still lay like an unholy spirit upon her heart, killed its energies, and rendered her miserable. She expected the additional sorrow of his society in these forced walks, and her grief was mixed with surprise at his absence. He was often at the house, but he avoided her. She even saw him turn into a by-path, to get out of the way in which she walked--a circ.u.mstance as inexplicable as any of the prior difficulties with which the whole affair was beset on every side. She continued her meditations, called up repeated energies to nerve her for her disclosure, and, with many a sigh, felt them die away, and the tongue cleave to her mouth, as the unavailing effort shook her frame.

She had been in the habit of meeting Kirkpatrick at regular intervals; but two of the stated periods had pa.s.sed without an interview. The third was approaching; and she trembled as the necessity of throwing herself on his bosom, and seeking counsel in her difficulty, appeared to her in such a form as to shake her resolution not to encounter another night-meeting with her cousin. On the morning of that evening when she must repair to the burying-ground, or lose the chance of meeting Kirkpatrick for a considerable time, it was announced to her parents, in her presence, at the table of the morning meal, that Blacket House had, on the previous day, gone on a visit to a relation in a very distant part of the country, and that he would not return for eight days. She heard it, and her eyes were involuntarily turned up to heaven, in thanksgiving for the opportunity she now enjoyed of sobbing out her sorrows on the bosom of her Kirkpatrick, and getting good counsel in her distress. She said nothing when the announcement was made, and heard, without heeding, the remarks of her parents. Her thoughts were in Death's Mailing, and the pallid hue of her cheek gave place for a moment to the flush that followed the fancied touch of his lips, and the pressure that brought her nearer to the bosom where lay all the relief she now had in this world. She sought more freely than she had done for some time her old retreats, and again the song of the merle had some music for her ear--so ready is the oppressed soul to seek its accustomed pleasures, that it will clutch them in the interval of a suspended grief, though sure to return. Her cousin was gone for a time; he could not cross in these paths of the wood; and, oh happy thought! she would lie on the bosom of her Kirkpatrick, and breathe forth, uninterrupted, love's sweet tale, rendered sweeter and dearer by the grief with which it was shaded.

The evening fell that night beautiful and serene. No vapour clouded the "silver sheen," and no breath of wind rustled a leaf on the trees.

"Hail to ye, bright queen!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Helen, as she folded her mantle round her, and was on the eve of seeking the wood; "once more light me to my lover, if, after this meeting, you should for ever hide your face among the curtains of heaven."

And, breathing quick with the rising expectation of being enclosed in his arms, she issued from the house, and sought the well-known loaning that led to the burying-ground. Her grief had sunk for a time amidst the swelling impulses of her pa.s.sion; and it was not till she had been pressed to his bosom, her brow kissed by his burning lips, and deep-drawn sighs exhausted the ardour of a first embrace after so long a separation, that one single thought of the cruelty of her situation arose in her mind. They sat on the tumulus where they had sat often before. The gravestones around them lay serene in a flood of moonlight; the soft "buller" of the wimpling Kirtle was all that disturbed the silence of the night; calmly there reposed the dead of many generations; if their lives were ended, their griefs, too, were past; and Mary of the Le', whose grey monument reflected clearly the moon's light, was free from the anguish which, in struggling sighs, came from the bosom of her who was _yet_ above the green mound. Helen told her lover all the extraordinary circ.u.mstances of her situation. She wept at every turn of a new difficulty, and Adam's eyes were also suffused with tears; he pressed her again to his breast, and bade her be of better heart, for that better days were coming on the wings of time.

"I confess," he said, "my dear love, that I am unable to understand the conduct of that dark-minded man; but what can he do, if my Helen should yet redeem her error, and make this necessary disclosure? That is alone the cure of our pain. Oh, Helen! what a load of evil might have been averted from our heads by the exercise of a little self-command!"

"I see it, I feel it," replied she; "but there are powers higher than the resolves of mortals. I have struggled with myself till the blood was sent back in my veins, and frightened nature saved the powerless victim of grief by the mantle of unconsciousness. What, Adam, shall I do? I feel I am unequal to the task of speaking a daughter's rebellion and a traitor's resolution."

"When everything is explained, Helen," replied the other, "the treachery disappears, and a father and mother's love will not die under the pa.s.sing cloud of a little anger. Think of our bliss, love! Did hope never bring courage to your tongue, Helen? Ah, what would that bright G.o.ddess make Adam Fleming dare!"

"And what," said she, "would Helen Bell not dare for the love she bears to her Adam, if that sacred feeling of a daughter's duty were overcome?

But it must be. I shall fall upon my mother's neck, and weep out with burning tears of repentance a daughter's contrition. I will appeal to the heart of a mother and a woman. I will conjure up her own first love, move again the spring of her earliest affection, and feign to her my father lost, and her heart wrecked. Ay, Adam, hope--the hope of the possession of you--will accomplish all this. Helen has said it, and the issue will prove."

This burst of generous resolution produced a flood of tears. She crept closer to him, and the throbs of her heart were heard in the silence which reigned among the graves. A rustling sound among the trees roused her; she lifted her head, and fixed her eyes on a part of the wood on the other side of the Kirtle. For a moment she watched some movements not noticed by her lover. They rose, and Adam stood aside to get a better view of the interruption. In an instant she clung to his bosom; a loud shot reverberated through the wood; Helen fell dead--the ball destined for Kirkpatrick having been received by the devoted maiden, who saw the hand uplifted that was to do the deed of blood. Neither scream nor audible sigh came from her; one spring when the ball entered the heart--and death!

Kirkpatrick saw at once death and the cause of it, and in an instant he gave pursuit. Springing with a bound over the Kirtle, he seized Blacket House in the act of flight. The murderer turned, sword in hand, and a battle was fought in the wood, such as never was witnessed in the heat of the contest of armies. Had his opponent had twenty lives, the fury of Kirkpatrick would have been unsatiated by them all. His spirit was roused to that of a demon; a supernatural strength nerved his arm; he despised life and all its blessings; the world had in an instant lost for him any charms, but as the place where lived that one man whose blood was to glut his vengeance. His sword found the heart of Blacket House, and twenty wounds verified the ballad:--

"I lighted down my sword to draw-- I hacked him in pieces sma'-- I hacked him in pieces sma', For her sake that died for me."

He returned to the burying-ground. His Helen's body was as cold as that of those who lay beneath.

"O Helen fair beyond compare, I'll mak a garland of thy hair, Shall bind my heart for evermair Until the day I dee."

Such is the story of Helen Bell, a subject that has employed the pen of many a poet, and brought tears to the eyes of millions. We sometimes, according to our privilege, amuse our readers with pure unadulterated fiction. Would that our task had been such on this occasion!--for we prefer the sorrow which fancy, imitating truth, rouses in the heart, to the depressing power of "owre true a tale." We may add, that the Maid of Kirconnel is more frequently called Helen Irving than Helen Bell, in consequence of some doubt as to whether her mother was not really one of the Bells, and her father an Irving. After giving the matter all due consideration, and searching several authorities, we are satisfied that the truth is as we have related it. Our very ingenious friend, Professor Gillespie, in a section of the "Gleanings of the Covenant," says that the beautiful ballad, some of the lines of which we have quoted, was written on "Helen Palmer." We must have his authority.

TOM DUNCAN'S YARN.